From where,we, the Refugees Have Come

IntroductionThis is a collection of poems I wrote as a contribution, to commemorate
the 60th anniversary of the United Nation High Commissioner for
Refugee (UNHCR), an organisation that has successfully managed to
save the lives of millions of people, including Chileans, in our turbulent world. About
three thousands Chileans came to Britain during the 1970s thanks
to the UNHCR. I am one of those.

I left Chile following the bloody coup of the 11th of September,
1973 carried out by General Pinochet against the democratically
elected government of Salvador Allende. I arrived in Britain at
the end of September of 1974. In Scotland I become a singer-songwriter, a poet and many other things in part thans to the Solidarity received.

As a writer of poetry (if I can call myself that), I have always
been fascinated by my desire to see what piece of writing will appear
when confronted with a theme and a piece of paper where I can struggle
to reveal (as gracefully as possible) ambiguous, harmonious and
inharmonious images.

The following poems written in Edinburgh during the months of May
and June this year (2011), try to tell the dramatic story of millions
of people, who for many reasons, have been forced to leave their
countries to rebuild, with many sacrifices, their lives in new lands.
It is to them and the UNHCR that I dedicate this work.

Many thanks to Beth Draper for her exquisite cover design and my
long time friend John Gillies for his truthful translations of my
poems from Spanish into English.